The teachers we honor today enable students to succeed not just in the classroom, but also in the real world. These award recipients teach, inspire and love their students. What they accomplish each day helps keep America's future bright.

An editorial in this week’s State Journal addressed the "The minority staff of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee plans to issue a report this week that shows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's holdup of mining permits in Appalachia jeopardizes more than 5,600 jobs in West Virginia alone."

"If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers. The firearm death rate in Washington , DC is ...80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means you are about 25 per cent more likely to be shot and killed in the US capital, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the US, than you are in Iraq.

“I am looking for a source of Sewell vein coal. I checked out the www.wvcoal.com website and it indicated the Sewell vein is located in the following counties: Greenbrier, Raleigh, and Nicholas, among others. I am wondering if you could assist me in finding a mine where we could purchase a semi-truckload of Sewell vein coal. We are prepared to take 22-25 tons.” Contact: Thomas J. Pliura, M.D., J.D., P.C., Physician & Attorney at Law, P.O. Box 130, Le Roy, IL 61752 -- Ph. (309) 962-2299 -- Fax (309) 962-4646e-mail: tom.pliura@zchart.com